12,000 km of TCT Completed : Blue Lake to Elkford

Last night was uncomfortably cold, making sleep illusive.  As we lay awake we heard strange noises in the woods around us, including the repeated calls of a Barred Owl, the howling of a wolf pack, and an unidentified screaming.  We could also hear the distant sounds of industry.  Around 6:00 am traffic on the gravel road started up in earnest, and we decided to face the frigid temperatures outside the tent and begin our day.

When I left the relative warmth of my sleeping bag and stepped out of the tent to make our morning coffee (my least favourite part of the day by far) I was greeted with a stunningly beautiful scene.  A delicate mist was rising from the lake and snaking across its smooth surface.  The dark waters were providing a near perfect reflection of the trees and mountains on the far side of the lake, the top of which was turning to gold in the rising sun.

 

 
As we ate breakfast a pickup truck pulled into the parking lot and two gentlemen got out.  One went down to the beach, and the other stood beside the truck staring at us.  I imagine he was just curious, but it seemed a little strange. Both men seemed to be suffering from very bad coughs, which we later discovered the cause of.

After eating our breakfast and packing everything up we headed back out onto the Trans Canada Trail which continued to follow a gravel road with our feet and hands feeling like painful blocks of ice.  We soon realized that a heavy frost had covered everything that wasn't sheltered by trees during the night.  Grasses, plants, and shrubs that were in patches of sunshine sparkled like jewels in the early morning light.

 

As the sun slowly began to provide a small measure of warmth we began to enjoy the scenery.  The sky was clear and blue, and the details of the rocky peaks and mountains surrounding us were clearly visible.  Steep treed slopes led down to forested valleys and grassy plains, and the ridges on either side of the long, narrow valley seemed to go on forever.

About an hour after setting out we came to the Frying Pan Creek Trailhead.  It was one of many trail heads we've passed since walking across the Elk Pass and along the Elk Valley.  Many of these trails head straight up the side of the mountains, and a lot of them look like they require way marking and some decent navigational skills.  Although we haven't explored any of these side trails, it certainly seems like the Elk Valley provides many opportunities for wilderness exploration.

 

Not too long after this point we discovered the source of the "highway" sounds we'd been hearing, and the reason for some of the traffic. It happened as we slowly we noticed that the range of mountains that bordered the east side of the valley ahead of us looked different.  On closer inspection we realized the region's Rocky Mountains had been terraformed and reduced into huge black steps.

 

We were walking beside Teck's Fording River Coal Mine.  The scale of the operation was mind boggling!  The tops of the mountains had been removed, and the sides had been reshaped, leaving a huge length of black, soft looking, stepped hills among a section of jagged, rocky, peaks.  Across the valley we could see enormous machines moving earth or coal around, smoke and dust rising from the highest levels of the terraced hillside and hanging in the air above.

 

The Fording River Coal Operation is the largest of Teck's four open pit coal mines in the Elk Valley.  While we stood transfixed by the shear scale of the operation, we realized that so far humanity's capacity to affect environmental change has been limited only by our imaginations and our ingenuity.  Engineering, technology, and innovation have allowed us to bring unimaginable destruction to our home planet.  However, our abilities should also give us the capacity to help repair, clean up, protect, and steward our environment.  If we harness our potential for creating positive change, the scale and magnitude of the differences we are clearly able to affect could create a better future for ourselves and our planet.

 

As we continued down the valley we noticed several signs indicating that the land around us was being managed under an agreement with the Ktunaxa (aka Kootenay, Kootenai, or Kutenai) First Nation.  For more than 10,000 years the Ktunaxa People have inhabited a territory in the southeastern part of British Columbia which included parts of Alberta, Montana, Idaho, and Washington. Prior to the creation of Indian Reserves in the late 1880's, the Ktunaxa lived as a distinct and self-sufficient society, and their language is unrelated to any other language in the world.  Despite being subject to 120 years of Indian Reserves, and several decades of Residential School attendance at the St. Eugene Mission in Cranbrook, there is still a thriving community of  Ktunaxa People, with around 1500 members in BC, Idaho, and Montana.  In the Elk Valley they are fighting to protect as much of the rivers and forests from the effects of coal mining as they can.

 

Just after noon we came to the Round Prairie Upper Elk Forest Service Recreation campground.  Unlike the others we have stayed at or passed by, which generally offered a couple small sites tucked in among the trees, the Round Prairie site was a huge, open grassy meadow on the banks of the Elk River, which space for many campers.  There were about half a dozen people camped out along the river in RVs,  some of which had set up rather permanent looking camps.  The site was busy with ATVs, trucks, and smaller vehicles coming in and out. 

As the road began to climb again we got beautiful views down the turqouise waters of the river, and we realized this must be a very popular fly fishing spot.  Fishermen and women were scattered along the rocky shores and shoals of the shallow, fast moving waterway, while others were standing knee-deep in the rushing waters.  Today was a warm, sunny Saturday and clearly many people were out taking advantage of the gorgeous day.

 

Unfortunately for us, as we approached Elkford the amount of traffic on the gravel road increased dramatically.  The road was so dry and dusty that the vehicles kicked up huge clouds of dust, which began to remind us of walking the range roads of Saskatchewan.  Traffic was coming down the single lane road at high speed in both directions, and often the trucks were so close together they couldn't see much through the clouds of dust left behind by the vehicle in front. 

A few drivers very courteously slowed down for us, but I'm not sure the others even noticed we were there.  To make things more unnerving we were still climbing, and the edges of the road were extremely soft, often giving way when we stepped over onto the side.  At one point avoiding a speeding truck, Sean slid off the edge, falling several meters down the embankment in the sharp gravel on the same hand he injured in Banff.  His knuckles were bleeding, and almost immediately the fingers of his right hand began to swell up and turn purple again.  Sigh.  There are times I wish things weren't always so tough for him.

 

When we were 3 km outside of Elkford we came to a kiosk for the Elk Valley Trail.  Although technically we have been following this 130 km trail since we headed down from the Elk Pass, this was the first trail kiosk, and the first section of the pathway that was off the logging/mining road.  The Elk Valley Trail connects the High Rockies Trail in Alberta to the trails of British Columbia via the Elk Pass, and it connects the communities of Elkford, Sparwood, Fernie, and Elko in the Elk Valley.  We will continue to follow it for the next few days, until we reach Elko.

 

We gratefully stepped off the dusty road and took a break at the trail head, sitting on a large rock beside the footpath.  We had been seriously tempted to continue straight down the road for 3 km to Elkford, where the call of a shower, clean clothes, and a cold iced tea were very strong.  By taking the trail we would not only be climbing back up into the hills, but also adding an 3.5 km to the distance we had to cover.  As two ATVs raced each other down the road, narrowly avoiding a pickup truck that was flying over the hill in the opposite direction, and the dust filtered through the trees to cover us, we decided to take the trail.

 

We weren't in the best frame of mind as we walked our first section of the Elk Valley Trail, but it was actually very nice.  The earth footpath snaked up a river valley through a stand of mature trees.  It then brought us out into a clear-cut, where it meandered through the stumps and pine saplings, enjoying gorgeous views of the forested mountains behind.

 

 

 

More climbing followed, taking us up into another stand of mature conifers.  The sunlight filtered down to the forest floor, creating patterns of light and shadow that danced on the needle covered path.  We took another break, and were surprised to find two hand sewn, cloth, recently discarded dog booties tucked behind a log.  When we emailed Mel to ask if they looked familiar, we learned that they might indeed have belonged her beloved companion, the famous Malo!  The pair, known as @betweensunsets, is about three weeks ahead of us on the trail, and it was lovely to find evidence of these two intrepid adventurers who had passed this way!

 

 

 

As we continued on we caught our first glimpses of Elkford in the valley below.  Heavily logged mountain slopes rose up around it, and we could see the mine in the background.  In some ways we were surprised by the trail, which seemed to go out of its way to showcase clear cuts, forestry, and mining.  We are used to these things being more hidden from view, mostly on the backsides of the mountains, so that visitors to BC come away with the idea of beautiful, natural, pristine, untouched wilderness.  Mining and forestry are clearly what keeps the communities in the Elk Valley strong and thriving, and in a way it was kind of refreshing that this wasn't hidden.  Each region of the Trans Canada Trail that we've walked through showcases what is important in a region in one way or another.  It seems this trail will give us an opportunity to see the reality that is experienced by many communities in this province, whose economy relies heavily on natural resource extraction.

 

The last part of the trail was a challenge for us, coming as it did at the end of a long day.  The trail was clearly designed for mountain bikers, and it bounced up and down and wove back and forth across the slopes and through the trees.  This design is intended to help mountain bikers more easily climb and descend steep slopes, but by this point our legs were tired and we were ready to arrive.  As such the constant ups and downs just felt unnecessary.

 

Finally we came down off the mountain and walked through a small neighbourhood.  Two mule deer were casually grazing on the lawns of several homes.  Nobody paid the slightest attention except us, so this must have been a regular occurrence.

After arriving we spent a couple days in Elkford, trying (and failing) to get caught up with the blogging and photo editing while staying at the wonderful Elkford Municipal Campground.  For two people who were born and raised in cities in Ontario, experiencing life in Elkford was an educational experience.  Every aspect of life here is determined by the mine.  During shift changes, which seem to be roughly every 8 hours, traffic on the roads rivals that in any major city with armies of people and trucks in movement.  In between there is very little activity, except in the local bar, where it is always 'after work' for one crew or another.

 

 

One of the most surprising things was listening to the miners whose voices were gravelly and who spent much of their time hacking with terrible coughs and hacking up black globs.  I had naively assumed that the days when miners died of lung cancer and other respiratory diseases from coal dust and fumes were over.  With so many workplace health and safety guidelines in force now, I had imagined protective gear or preventative measures to reduce airborne particles would have been developed and implemented.   

 

Visiting a mining town leaves one with no doubt that for every resource that we rely upon, for everything use, and for everything we buy there is a worker, a family, a community and an environment which pays the cost.  For some it is merely one of money for others it is their health or lives, but there is always a cost.

 

At one point during the day we had heard sirens screaming up the valley far below us.  We later learned there had been some kind of accident in the mine, and it was clear it had deeply affected the men working there.  We had the sense that they all felt it could easily have them who was injured or worse, and that when it was their time, there was no help coming.  We were left with the words of Great Big Sea's 'Chemical Worker's Song' circling in our minds:

“And it's go boys, go
They'll time your every breath
And every day you're in this place
You're two days nearer death

But you go

 

Well, a Process Man am I and I'm tellin' you no lie
I work and breathe among the fumes that trail across the sky
There's thunder all around me and there's poison in the air
There's a lousy smell that smacks of hell and dust all in me hair

And it's go boys, go

 

They'll time your every breath
And every day you're in this place
You're two days nearer death
But you go…”

 

See you on the trail!

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